Trump hasn’t actually tweeted anything new this morning – yet. But he has retweeted something that he tweeted a couple of days ago and it has to do with building the wall:
You probably recognize the tweet from Sunday morning when my taco-loving co-blogger wrote about it. But I have a different take on what Trump meant by “M” at the end of the tweet.
I think the “M” means Military, not Mexico. After all, Trump kept capitalizing “Military” in the tweet as though it were a proper noun.
And there’s been a lot of talk on the right about how Trump can actually use money directed to the Pentagon (and elsewhere) to pay for the wall in full:
“Build WALL through M” sounds like a plan that John Salisbury outlined in a Twitter thread yesterday. Rather than embed each tweet, I will post their contents below. Readers who want to reference an individual tweet may visit the link above to review the entire thread.
1) Let’s talk about what the President can and can’t do for this Omnibus Bill. There’s a lot of discussion both ways so let’s examine how money gets allocated & spent in the US Government:
1. Congress allocates money to be spent. The President spends the allocated money.
2. Once Congress allocates money, their job is oversight of the money being spent. They don’t spend the money and have no say HOW it gets spent as long as it’s spent legally. That’s their job to monitor with oversight.
3. Once the President is given the money with the instructions to spend it, he has a number of choices to make in spending it. There are some rules he has to follow & some of the money is fungible and some isn’t.
4. However there are some other factors that are in play here. One of them is that the President has declared a Human Rights Emergency AND has notified Congress that he’s invoking the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. 5. This opens up new options.
6. By making these two declarations President Trump has just communicated that he has the authority to NOT spend any funds he doesn’t deem necessary and will return them to the US Treasury. So, funds for Planned Parenthood? He can simply not allocate the funds.
7. Also, these declarations make some funds fungible. For instance if he determines that building a Wall on the Southern Border is a defense against Human Trafficking? He can move funds from anywhere else in the Defense Dept Allocation & simply build the Wall.
8. Congress is powerless to stop cash reallocations on an omnibus bill AND cannot stop the DOD from taking measures under a declared Emergency. 9. Despite their language in the Omnibus Bill about the Border Wall, it is trumped by the State of Emergency that Trump declared.
8) So in summary – This will go to the Courts. Congress will sue the President over the Border Wall. But here’s how it will play out – Congress and the President are co-equal branches with different functions. Congress allocates. The President spends.
9) The President has National Security as his Primary Responsibility and it’s his job to use whatever funds and declarations he needs to for that job. No Court in this Nation (except corrupt on the take Judges) would EVER rule against a President for exercising that authority.
10) In the end the Supreme Court (yes, that’s where it will end) will fully VALIDATE the President’s Constitutional Authority & the Wall will be built. /end #MAGA #QAnon #TQFam #8Chan #TheGreatAwakening #TheStormIsHere @POTUS #InternetBillOfRights #FreeTheInternet
It wouldn’t surprise me if this is what Trump is planning to do. And I think Salisbury is correct in that if Trump does this, it will definitely go to the courts.